12 FEBRUARY 1927, Page 29

Y THE CITY OF LONG SAND. By Alice Tisdale rt.

(Fisher Unwin. 12s. 6d.)-The central idea of this IS original. The writer describes herself as the wife of a veer Tinder," one of an army of traders " moving from t e I) place under orders emanating from a `k skyscraper The author's object is not to describe China, the ittle patches of America scattered over China, " little tri'ets," where an American life is lived amid " the laeval squalor of the East," The book is very slight, but writing is charming, reminiscent of Howells and his Boston rakes of the lad, century.